Elena Könz is an Olympic snowboarder, art enthusiast and general action sports powerhouse. Having learned to snowboard at twelve years old at a resort in Scuol, near her hometown of Vnà, Switzerland, Könz quickly developed into the immense talent who qualified for the 2014 Olympics in slopestyle and has gone forward to win a fucking LOT of international awards. Watch this short film, A Chasa, where she combines creativity and athleticism in a casually badass view of her true passion in motion. Catch her behind-the-scenes summary below, and be sure to visit her website for more from this inspiring athlete.

Words By Elena Koenz

This year was awesome for riding powder in Switzerland. The best thing about it was that I didn’t have to fly anywhere to find good pow. I could basically stay at home and let the nature do its work. As I stopped riding competitions after the Olympics last winter, I could enjoy the pow to the fullest without having thoughts on missing out trainings or competitions. We had some awesome days in my hometown over Christmas where we could ride powder everyday in my home ski resort Scuol or touring nearby.

I grew up in Vnà, a small village in the mountains of Switzerland. The village has 60 habitants, so I know everyone by name. Some of the houses are empty and the village was our playground when we where kids. This is when I had first thoughts about doing a film project in the village where I grew up. When PeakFrames asked me if I would like to do a film project with them, I had a plan.

When we could start to film, unfortunately most snow in the village had already melted. As we still wanted to film something there, we had the idea to drop from a roof because there was still some snow up there. After the postman drove over the landing two times with his car and we prepared it again, our friendly neighbor let me climb up the roof and get the shot.

The first two days filming in my hometown were pretty intense. We did two other spots near my hometown and one turned out to be a lot of fun, as I could ride it first as a quarter and then as a jump where I did a backside air. A week later, we got lucky as it snowed again. My friends Isabel Derungs and Irene Schweizer joined me for one of the most fun powder days in my home ski resort Scuol. We did some hikes to find untracked snow where we could film some sprays, turns and butters.

The day after, we decided to do a backcountry jump. We didn’t have too much time as the bad weather and fog came in quickly. It was the last short window of light when I decided to do a backflip. I landed the backflip far down the landing with the last bit of sunlight. Afterwards, it got so foggy that we decided to leave the spot.

It was a really good experience and so much fun to film with PeakFrames, Isabel Derungs and Irene Schweizer. A huge thanks to everyone involved and to everyone supporting and believing in us.

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